Asymmetric isolating barriers between different microclimatic environments caused by low immigrant survival.
Author
Summary, in English
Spatially variable selection has the potential to result in local adaptation unless counteracted by gene flow. Therefore, barriers to gene flow will help facilitate divergence between populations that differ in local selection pressures. We performed spatially and temporally replicated reciprocal field transplant experiments between inland and coastal habitats using males of the common blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum) as our study organism. Males from coastal populations had lower local survival rates than resident males at inland sites, whereas we detected no differences between immigrant and resident males at coastal sites, suggesting asymmetric local adaptation in a source-sink system. There were no intrinsic differences in longevity between males from the different environments suggesting that the observed differences in male survival are environment-dependent and probably caused by local adaptation. Furthermore, the coastal environment was found to be warmer and drier than the inland environment, further suggesting local adaptation to microclimatic factors has lead to differential survival of resident and immigrant males. Our results suggest that low survival of immigrant males mediates isolation between closely located populations inhabiting different microclimatic environments.
Department/s
Publishing year
2015
Language
English
Publication/Series
Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences
Volume
282
Issue
1802
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Royal Society Publishing
Topic
- Biological Sciences
Status
Published
Research group
- Evolution and Ecology of Phenotypes in Nature
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1471-2954